funny music is good

While the Ween brothers weren’t the first to make silly music, I’d argue that they were the best. Aaron Freeman and Michael Melochiondo (known by their stage names Gene and Dean Ween) met in an eighth-grade computing class. They were not destined to be friends, coming from opposite ends of the jock-geek spectrum at their New Hope, Pennsylvania middle school, but they managed to find common ground in music. Dean and Gene ended up using time in class to write out the names of their first songs, despite the songs themselves remaining unwritten. They first played on out-of-tune guitars and half a working drum set, though this hardly mattered to them, especially because they didn’t know how to tune. Dean and Gene didn’t care, although they eventually invested in a drum machine.

I first listened to Ween in the spring of 2021. Like a lot of music that I’ve gotten into, Ween came at the recommendation of a girl I was kind of seeing at the time. Admittedly, I didn’t like it. At all. I found the “normal” songs generic and the “wacky” ones just plain unlistenable. The voice of Gene, who sings on most of the songs, took some getting used to. But therein lies the genius of Ween: they break the perception of what “sounds good” and make you realize that easy listening isn’t always the goal. Only then can you start to realize that it is, in fact, very good and a lot of it is actually pretty easy to listen to.

This does make it hard to recommend to people. To get hooked, you need to approach their discography from a specific angle, starting with the more “traditional” songs, only later proceeding onto their experiments. This article will hopefully provide a guide to enter the universe of Ween.

The name “Ween” has just about as juvenile an origin as you can imagine: a combination of the words “wuss” and “penis”. Dean once said in an interview: “It somehow described this juvenile sound that we made, it was the perfect name for the band because at that time anyway the music was really designed to be obnoxious. We were just trying to do something that was weird.” The brothers later teamed up with Claude Coleman Jr., Glenn McClelland, and David Dreiwitz for their live performances, eventually accompanied by many others in the studio.

The brothers received very mixed reactions when they came onto the scene in the 1990s. Despite signing to Elektra Records, one of the forefront labels for alternative music at the time, and putting out their first studio album with them in 1994, they were publicly ridiculed, most famously on a Beavis and Butthead episode. Narrating over the music video for “Push Th’ Little Daisies”, the animated pair claimed that Ween “had no future.” Little did they know that the band would be selling out shows nearly thirty years later.

The Ween brothers played with genre throughout their careers with Prince (“Monique the Freak”) maintaining a chokehold on the brothers, as well as barbershop quartets (“Drifter in the Dark”). Their imitations sometimes get taken as satire or parody but the brothers fight against this constantly, most notably in 1995 interview with Spin:

“If we sound like anybody, it just comes out like that,” Gene stresses. “We’d probably like to hang out with those people and work with them. We would never make fun of any of those people.” Ditto Dean: “We’re not trying to parody music. We’re not trying to destroy music. We’re just trying to make good music.”

The balance of irreverence and deep respect for their musical forefathers mean that anybody can find something that they like in their discography: you just have to search a bit. Dean and Gene wrote some pretty good love songs too, with the silliness that peaks through the potential corniness that thousands of other crooning tunes have suffered from (see “Someday” off Shinola Vol. 1).

Ween also had a serious misstep, as any prolific band is bound to have, including their country album, 12 Golden Country Greats. In their homage to old country hits, the Ween brothers lean heavily on the pervasive misogyny of the genre (and many of the songs are just not good). Dean and Gene (to align themselves with these “country greats”) also drop the typical distortion of their voices which may cause a listener to do a double take, questioning the musical choices they make. Nevertheless, they still approached the writing and recording of this album with the same intensity applied to their other works, even having Elvis Presley’s back-up vocalists on many of the tracks to offer a sense of legitimacy.

Many of their songs, as you may have guessed, were also written under the influence of drugs. Considering the heavy drug use by Gene, Dean, and the other rotating members of the band, it is hardly surprising that their mythology revolves around a god-like character named Boognish. Described on a fan website as, “a Demon God who has appeared thrice to the prophet brothers Dean and Gene Ween”, anything more about Boognish is probably best left up to the curious fan to investigate for themselves.

Like many of their musical influences, Ween’s stage presence is enrapturing. In one 2003 Chicago set (which has racked up nearly a million views on YouTube), Dean and Gene pair their established diverse musical choices with equally complicated (albeit necessary) instrumental backings. Switching back and forth from electric to acoustic guitars, the brothers are backed by a ridiculously tight rhythm section (a revolving group who served as a steady background throughout their years of touring and recording), who have their work cut out for them, alternating between different genres from song to song. On “Zoloft”, one of their sillier songs off Quebec, Gene shimmies slowly across the stage to the microphone, stopping just in time for his entrance. Bug-eyed, he starts singing about his newfound, doped-up happiness. The hypnotic nature of this song is meant to initially distract the listener from the larger social critique it is making, or it makes you question if they’re making a critique at all. Maybe Gene and Dean just really like Zoloft.

Despite their clear influences and well-executed homages, Ween is at their best when playing their own sound, as seen on their eighth studio album Quebec. Ween was prolific during their recording years, so discussing each of their albums and compilations would take far too much time, especially considering the 300 pages of reading I have due tomorrow for my Intro to Sociology class. There is a good case study to examine, however, in Quebec. Released in 2003 by Sanctuary Records, it was their eighth studio album and commemorated their return to an independent label after their contract with Elektra expired. Reviews following its release were varied, with some hailing it as the “most accessible” Ween album while others called it “their strangest (and definitely most eclectic) in quite some time.” Eric Carr’s review in Pitchfork alternates between calling Ween boring and attacking their listeners (“half the people who really like Ween live in psycho wards”). The disagreement in the critical community of trying to ascertain Ween’s quirkiness is exactly the problem that they were trying (consciously or subconsciously) to fix. There is no definitive word for Quebec, no snapping two sentence review that could take into account the musical and lyrical genius that Dean and Gene possess. It’s dark and depressing yet hilarious and absurd; annoying at times, yes, but always addicting.

Quebec features “Tried and True”, their second most popular song after the infamous “Ocean Man”, but also some cult favorites such as “So Many People in the Neighborhood” and “Hey There Fancypants”, the latter of which has never failed to put me in a good mood, despite its underlying message of loneliness. The power of Quebec comes from its juxtaposition of upbeat melodies and gloomy themes.

Delving deeper into the increasingly depressing Quebec, “Transdermal Celebration” warns us of nuclear apocalypse (or maybe just chronicles a good drug trip?) while “So Many People in the Neighborhood” warns us to “stay inside” and avoid strangers. Don’t even think of asking what “The Fucked Jam” is about.

However, sometimes they drop the façade and are completely earnest. “I Don’t Want It” off Quebec tells the heartbreaking story of a relationship that the narrator is leaving behind:

I’ve let you drift so far from me now

But please, hold onto the memories

Before we really crash and burn

We’ve got ourselves so wrapped up

That we’ve forgotten how to learn

He mourns an old girlfriend and admits that while he can understand why he’s been treated badly in the relationship, that doesn’t excuse mistreatment at her hands. It’s a song about moving on, even if you don’t want to or feel like you can’t.

So, I fell in love with Ween while falling out of love with someone else. The brothers (along with Boognish) rescued me from the usual pretentious garbage that I listen to and opened my eyes to the fact that music can and should be silly.

(Gene and Dean are continuing to do their thing as Ween continues to tour across the US. See them play in Philadelphia in September, if you’re into that. I would highly recommend it.)